Volume 7. Issue 1 February 2011.

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Foreword:
Drs. Rajabali Askarzadeh Torghabeh & Paul Robertson

Foreword
Welcome to the first edition of the year 2011. The Iranian EFL Journal will be a bi-monthly journal from 2011. The journal has had strong growth over the last few years with a monthly readership now exceeding 2000 readers. For a new journal examining the topic of English second language acquisition from a local perspective, the growth and readership has been pleasing. Statistically, readers are coming from almost 80 countries. In the first issue of volume 7 we present 15 articles for your reading.  
    
In the first article, the authors Khalil Motallebzadeh and Neda Heirany report findings from an experimental study of the effect of thematic clustering of L2 vocabulary on the reading comprehension ability that occurred in 10 sessions of classes for two intact groups of intermediate EFL adult learners.

In the second article, Nasser Rashidi and Hamid Reza Zare Asl have evaluated, compared, and determined the strengths and weaknesses of two Pre-university English textbooks based on Littlejohn's framework that is a language teaching materials evaluation framework. In the next article, Bahman Gorjian, Syyed Rahim Moosavinia, and Parisa Shahramiri have investigated the effects of oral summary of short stories on male/female learners' speaking proficiency. In the fourth article, Ebrahim Khodadady, Sara Shirmohammadi, and Farima Talebi have explored whether applying brainstorming strategies brings about significant improvements in English language learners' speaking proficiency and critical thinking skills. In the next article, Hamid Ashraf has examined critical thinking in the context of language learning at universities. In the next article, Mahdieh Arjomand and Masoud Sharififar have explored the most and least frequently used vocabulary learning strategies and the relationship between gender and strategy use among Iranian EFL freshman students. In the next article, Majid Nemati and Amin Shahini have focused on the relationship between extroversion/introversion and English oral proficiency.

In the next article, Mehdi Mehrani and Ghasem Modarresi report the findings from a case study research of a proficient EFL reading instructor in order to provide a rich account of the process of effective scaffolding in a one-to-one tutoring context. In the next article, Maryam Shirin zarii and Mehdi Mardani have investigated the effects of text modification (i.e. simplification and elaboration) on EFL learners’ incidental vocabulary acquisition. Ehsan Rassaei and Mansoor Tavakoli have explored if learners’ gender influences the effectiveness of corrective feedback they receive during classroom interactions. Moreover, Sepideh Ahmad Khan Beigi and Hamed Ahmadi reported on rhetorical patterns of social essays in Persian and English based on five contrastive features.

In the next article, Shirin Abadikhah and Zahra Mosleh have investigated whether EFL learners at different proficiency levels differ in their focus of attention to linguistic features during the completion of a set of output activities. Fateme Layeghi has also attempted to shed light on the problematic issue of whether to provide writers with one or multiple writing prompts to elicit their best performance and explore their preference in single vs. multiple topics writing.

In the next article, Bahareh Khazaeenezhad and Mohammad Reza Talebinezhad have presented a preliminary step towards approaching a cognitive-affective course or, in Forgas' (2001) terms, an affect into thought infusion course, which focuses on reading open-ended stories. In the last article, Hossein Askari and Moussa Ahmadian have determined how many reading comprehension strategies are effective to be taught to university students in a given semester.

We hope you enjoy this edition and look forward to your readership.